In June this year, Flipkart had revised its commission system resulting in serious protests from the members of eSeller Suraksha and All India Online Vendors Association (AIOVA). They declared a strike against Flipkart and displayed their products as out of stock on the e-commerce website. The sellers' main bone of contention was that Flipkart had increased the commission for various categories, while only minimally reducing the prices for a few categories.

Flipkart is locked in an intense battle with Amazon and Snapdeal to capture market share in the very competitive Indian e-commerce market. All three e-commerce firms had launched various initiatives in the run up to the Diwali festive season sales.

Flipkart claimed that it sold more units, 15.5 million units compared to Amazon's 15 million units. Snapdeal claimed to have sold 11 million units. However, Amazon India head Amit Agarwal ruled out Flipkart's claim of being the best in the business, saying that the metrics it and Snapdeal follow are 'bogus'.

Amazon saw its seller base increase from 40,000 last December to over 120,000 this year.